Our Nine Best Ramen Restaurants

In the port city of Yokohama, Japan, there is a large museum dedicated to ramen. There, one can learn the story of ramen's genesis between slurps of noodles and broth: Though the noodle is now practically Japan's national dish -- popular enough to support more than 200,000 ramen restaurants -- the noodles are actually Chinese in origin, and it was Chinese migrants who brought the springy wheat noodles to Japan in the early 20th century. Japanese cooks remade the noodles to their own taste, and by the 1950s, Japan was the ramen-crazy country it still is today.

Around New York, we can get the noodles in various dishes and regional styles, some traditional, like Ippudo's Hakata-style ramen, and some seemingly invented, like ZuZu Ramen's green curry ramen.

Our picks for the nine best ramen joints in New York follow -- just nine this week because that's how many places we were able to confirm as great. As always, if we missed your favorite, tell us about it in the comments.

5. Minca Ramen Factory Deliciously porky, garlicky tonkotsu broth, springy wheat noodles, and sometimes they have "experimental ramen," which seems to mean that the cook will make you whatever he feels like. 536 East 5th Street, 212-505-8001